An Analysis of Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture From the Perspective of Post―colonialism
好听的女孩英文名字：Toni Morrison’s Nobel lecture--The Looting of Language， is one of the greatest lectures in contemporary American literature. This paper attempts to analyze this lecture from the perspective of post-colonialism. Tony Morrison implies the event of colonization and its corollary in her lecture. She us the “bird-in-hand” to imply the language of the colonized writers， the old blind woman to imply a colonized writer and the group of young men to imply the colonizers. The only way out for saving the language of the colonized writers from oppression， as she puts forward， is the joint efforts of the two cultures，combining both advantages of white culture and black culture，and advancing towards their “bird” in unison.
1 Introduction
Postcolonial critics concern themlves with literature written in English in formerly colonized countries. It usually excludes literature that reprents either British or American viewpoints and concentrates on writings from colonized cultures in Australia， New
Zealand， Africa， South America， and other places that were once dominated by， but remained outside of， the white， male， European cultural， political， and philosophical tradition. Often referr
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如何考托福ed to as“Third World Literature” by Marxist critics―a term many other critics think pejorative―postcolonial literature and its theorists investigate what happens when two cultures clash， and more specifically， what happens when one of them， with its accessory ideology， empowers and deems itlf superior to the other （Bressler， 199）. Tony Morrison implies the event of colonization and its corollary in her lecture―The Looting of Languag e， for Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.
意大利语培训>bony2 A Post-colonialist Analysis of the Lecture
Tony Morrison opens her speech by referring to a tale of two young people who are trying to disprove the credibility of a wi old woman. In this allegorical story，the colonizers prent themlves in the form of some young people， while the colonized writers prent themlves in the form of an old wi woman. In the story， the old wi woman has a reputation of good clairvoyance， which implies that the colonized writers are born in a deep and long
culture. Though it is plain truth， the young people just cannot believe it，which indicates the colonizers’ overpowering ambition of oppressing the colonized writers in order to exploit the wide and fertile areas they are aiming at. The young men hold a bird in their hands and mock the wi blin
翻译器在线example是什么意思d woman by asking her whether the bird is living or dead. The bird-in-the-hand might signify the language of a colonized writer. The colonizers are questioning the colonized writer the nature of the language he us in his writing. But how could a blind woman distinguish whether a bird is live or dead？ The old wi woman does not answer the question and keeps silent for a long time. This colonized writer is thinking about the nature of his own language， the one that is given at his birth but withheld from her for certain nefarious purpos. He is considering how he should handle his own language in the process of his writing. The young people cannot hold their laughter and laugh at the old woman. Maybe they are making fun of the colonized writer’s embarrassing situation： do the colonized writers still have their own language？ Is their language a mixture of native and foreign languages in which foreign language dominates themead
major part？ The colonizers cannot help deeming in this way and revealing their pleasure of dominating and exploiting other country subconsciously. The colonized writer knows the colonizers’ motive， which accounts for the old woman’s long silence. Finally， the old woman speaks in a soft but stern voice，“I do not know whether the bird is dead or live， but what I do know is that it is in your hands. It is in your hands.” The meaning of the old woman’s words is quite clear here： the colonizers have the final say of the language of the colonized people―the colonizers are controlling
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the language of the colonized；they can define it at their own will， be it dead or alive；they can also treat the language at their own will， too，either badly or well， which is a matter of their own will as well； but the final responsibility lies in the colonizers. Here we can e the bitter conditions of the colonized people： even language， the esnce of their national spirit， falls into the hands of the colonizers. The colonized people have no right to keep their own language， not to mention to protect it from invasion and destruction. The root of this bitter condition comes from the colonizers’ overpowering ambition of conquering and
exploiting weaker countries. Here the old woman shifts attention away from the colonizers’ asrtions of power to the instrument through which that power is exercid. She is reprimanding the colonizers’ atrocities and fights back the atrocities with undertones.
Morrison’s speech leads us to a central c oncept of postcolonial theory： the othering， the division of the world between “us”，the “civilized” or the “colonizers”，and “them，” the “savages” or the “colonized.” Homi k. Bhabha， one of the leading voices in postcolonial studies， rais the concerns of the colonized. What of the individual who has been colonized？On the one hand， the colonized obrves two somewhat distinct views of the world： that of the colonizer （the conqueror） and that of himlf or herlf， the colonized （he or she who has been conquered）.
To what culture does this person belong？ Seemingly， neither culture feels like home. This feeling of homeliness， of being caught between two clashing cultures， Bhabha calls unhomeliness，a concept referred to as double consciousness by other postcolonial theorists. This feeling or perception of abandonment by both cultures caus the colonial subject
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